Yuriko sighed while her body moved with the sway of the Steeld carriage. It's been hours already and she was sure she could have flown the hundred longstrides in a couple of hours. The ride would take the entire day, and they'd stay overnight in the nearby village before they would even enter the Chaos Fount.
The carriage was roughly twelve paces long and five wide. It wasn't pulled by a separate Steeld but was a Steeld itself. It reminded Yuriko of landcraft back home, and automobiles in Karcella. It had wheels, of course, but was propelled by thick, mechanical legs underneath. The front was flat, and there was a window to show the way. There was a pilot to direct the path, but the man on the control booth wasn't controlling so much as pointing the way for the carriage itself.
Yuriko wondered why the Bresians continued to use horse-shaped, and other animal-shaped, golems for transport when they had the technologies to create self-propelling carriages. She supposed it was a divergent development of technologies, but there was a good reason for the Steelds.
As she found out one day, when she toured the foundries and workshops of Nirlith City, Steelds were built around a beast core. Such cores held remnant instincts of their origins, and building around such instincts was simple and easy. Hence, Steelds did not need to be enchanted to walk. They already knew how. Instead, the runescript formations around them involved restrictions and control.
She remembered a bit of the runescript formations needed to build a Chaos ship, and while she didn't know what was needed to construct landcraft, haulers, or transports, she supposed they were much more complex.
The Steeld carriage she rode now was built around several beast cores, and all the pilot needed to do was set a direction and path. The minutiae of piloting the carriage was left to the beast spirits held within. And because the carriage was borne by wheels, springs, and such contraptions instead of the mechanical legs, the ride was smooth instead of jostling. Yuriko sighed as she pulled out the intelligence report on their destination.
The Golden Fields.
The report was written in the Bresian language, but the letters were the same as Wojan. She had begun learning Bresian and it wasn't all that different from Wojan, she realised. There were more tonal differences, and some words seemed to repeat the same syllable over and over while meaning different things depending on their tones, but at least the words were spelt phonetically.
She struggled through the report, deciphering and cross-referencing the words with a Bresian-Wojan dictionary. She still took a break every ten minutes or so, to avoid getting a headache. She looked out into the countryside during those times or conversed with her fellow professors.
There were three Steeld carriages headed towards the Golden Fields, and contrary to what Yuriko first thought, it was not actually a Chaos Fount. She frowned at her own presumption, but the fields are what the Bresians called an Elemental Conflux. It was a place where the elemental energies were at least ten to a hundred times denser than anywhere else, and the bounds of reality bent.
There was ample knowledge about the Fields, and according to the report, it was bigger inside than anywhere else, though there was no temporal distortion. At least, not one that was strong enough to affect her. Communication spells within the conflux would not be hampered much, but any such spells targeted outside the zone would be more costly in terms of Will and Intent.
'Will I be able to contact Gwendith and Heron?' she thought to herself. 'Better to warn them.' When they arrived in Feldton, the village near the conflux, she would cast True Connection.
By the time the sun was close to setting, the carriage had arrived in the village of Feldton. As she was seated near the front, she was one of the first to see it as they went around the curve.
"It's very bright, isn't it?" Yuriko muttered.
There were brightly lit lanterns of different hues decorating the village square. Each house had one hanging by their doorways, too, and more than a few people loitering the main street. She could see people whispering and gossiping upon seeing the academy's Steeld carriages. Then again, the itinerary had them attending a welcome feast.
The academy's carriage for professors had the seats segregated into privacy booths. Each one was roughly four square paces, and there were ten booths in all. Ten professors, and only one other Battle Magus. The rest were from the other five departments: Caster, Guardian, Artificer, Arcane Brewer, and Geomancer. Of the six departments, Caster, Battle, and Guardian were the combat and military departments. The two other new professors, Juan Montez and Rey Ramirez had been included in the trip. The other Battle Magus was an Oska tribesman, a bearkin, and a Water Element Magus, Luis Vacca.
The Oskan groaned as he pulled himself out of his booth, nodded to Yuriko, and trod out of the carriage. The vehicle listed to the side as it bore his weight, and his shaggy head bumped into the ceiling before he slouched to fit through the doorway.
Yuriko followed the bearkin outside and was greeted by the locals who'd begun performing a welcome dance and song as soon as the first professor appeared. Yuriko couldn't understand the song, but the melodies were pleasant and soothing. The dancers were interesting, too, but as soon as she sniffed the scent of freshly cooked food wafting from the inn, her tummy gurgled.
The village alderman gave a speech as soon as everyone got off the carriages. Ryoko was in the second Steeld carriage, and she hurried to Yuriko's side.
"Young mistress." She smiled.
Yuriko gave the older woman a one-armed hug, then followed the crowd into the inn. They were served dinner while several villagers continued to serenade them, and then the ale and wine started to flow. Yuriko sipped a cup of warm red, while she continued studying the report. The wine warmed her tummy nicely, though she refrained from indulging. As the night wore on, the staffers and the professors grew a bit more rowdy as they drank deeper into their cups. The conversation grew louder and louder, then someone brought out a pack of cards. Several packs of cards and sets of dice, actually.
Luis waved for Yuriko to join the dice game but she shook her head and declined. The Oska tribesman simply shrugged and turned back to the game, while she returned to her study. She could have gone up to her room, actually, but when she checked with her Anima, she found that it wouldn't be quiet at all. Not when someone, er, two someones, were busy next door, and the walls weren't thick enough to muffle to groans and moans.
The expedition into the Golden Fields consisted of the ten professors, three Casters, Two Battlers, two Guardians, and one each of Arcane Brewer, Artificer, and Geomancer, and a similar number of aides and assistants. She'd seen most of them in Niria, of course, but she couldn't quite recall all of their names. She didn't interact much with professors outside of the Battle Magus department, and she spent most of her time training or trying to simplify True Connection. Improve it, too, since she wanted to talk to her Da and Mum.
From what she recalled of the Caster Department, they were Magi who focused on complex spells and battlefield support, while the Guardians weren't Magi at all. Not in the normal sense, at least. They were still people who have an Elemental Heart but have no aptitude for Arcana Weaving. Instead, their Heart Refinement Formulas all had to do with spells that were always active and didn't need constant attention and control.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, considering the department was called Guardian, most of them focused on body strengthening and shielding abilities. Not quite to the point where they could match Heron, much less her, and they also used firearms and arcane tools for defence.
"...don't know why they're wasting time with sword practice. A gun's better. All you need to do is point and shoot!" came a raucous laugh from one of the dice tables. The man who said that was the new Caster department professor, Juan Montez, and from the redness of his face and neck, he was quite inebriated. The other players around him murmured neutrally, though Yuriko noticed the other two Casters nod in agreement.
Yuriko glanced at Ryoko, who was doodling in a notebook and also quite flushed with ale. Clearly, she didn't notice the slight.
"Hmmm," Yuriko grunted. That was an insult directed at her, wasn't it? Should she answer? He looked drunk, though those inebriated either yelled things they truly meant or things that were passing fancies. Besides, she wasn't that thin-skinned.
"...I bet most of her students learn just to watch her jiggle, hie hie!"
Alright, that was a bit beyond the pale.
"Professor Montez," Yuriko said quietly, but her voice went through the crowd and stilled all conversation. The man froze and turned towards her, his cheeks still completely red and his eyes somewhat blurry.
"Yes, Professor Davar?"
"I believe you are losing control of your senses." She said pointedly, "I suggest you retire for the night." She tilted her head. "Unless you truly mean your remarks?"
The man paled as all the blood left his face and he stammered, "Ah, ah, I… yes, I believe I have taken too much to drink." He staggered to his feet, and bowed clumsily, "Please forgive me if I offended you."
"It is of no matter," Yuriko casually waved. "Do as you will." She sighed and stood up. "Come Ryoko, let us retire for the night."
Juan Montez and the others didn't move until she had climbed up the stairs. The buzz of conversation resumed but was muted.
Perhaps she shouldn't have reacted to the drunken insult, but her head was already starting to pound from all the reading she'd been doing. Her temper was worse than it normally was and she was missing her Gwendith and Heron terribly. Ah, Saki, too.
The pair next door had evidently concluded their tryst since the room was silent. She and Ryoko made their way inside their room and settled for the night.
The next morning, after a quick breakfast of oats and berries, the entire party had made their way to the village square. Many of her colleagues distanced themselves from where she stood, though when she flared her Tranquility Mien, it seemed to ease some of their worries. Juan Mondez avoided meeting her gaze, but Yuriko felt the other Caster professors sneer at her when she wasn't looking. Hmmm, she had not experienced the department conflicts before, but she knew Casters and Battlers often butted heads with their combat doctrines.
They piled into the carriages again, though it was less than ten minutes, and ten longstrides, to the entrance of the Elemental Conflux. There was a well-paved road leading to it too, wide and well-maintained. The carriages barely jostled at all.
The entrance was between too steep hills. There was a fog covering the place, roiling mists that stymied Yuriko's Enhanced Sight. Chaos Sight revealed that the fog was made up of thick elemental energies, and the swirling eddies had a rather hypnotic quality. The carriages stopped several hundred paces away.
Amongst the group, Yuriko was the most powerful, though one of the Caster professors, Rayan Velez, who was an Iona tribesman, a lion beastkin with a rather impressive man and a lean physique, was an Advanced Magus, and technically of the same rank as her. If this had been a military command, she would have been in charge, but since it was not, she wasn't. The honour fell to the Geomancer Magus, Andrea Mondez, a human woman who looked like she was in her late thirties, though was probably older.
"Professor Davar," Andrea said, "Please secure the entrance and hold a beachhead."
"Sure," Yuriko answered evenly. She hovered above the ground then shot straight into the Conflux.